Show Me
by Cassandra Mulder
Summary: Sequel to "Wasting My Time". Buffy's finally figured some things out. Now, if only she can make it up to Spike.


Title: Show Me  
  
Author: Cassandra Mulder  
  
E-mail/Feedback: Yes, I live on it! dana_mulder32@yahoo.com  
  
Written: November 27 - December 21, 2001  
  
Classification: S/B; angst; romance  
  
Spoilers: "The Gift"; Season 6  
  
Distribution: You can have it if you want it, but you gotta ask me first!  
  
Rating: PG-13 for language and adult themes  
  
Summary: Sequel to "Wasting My Time". Buffy's finally figured some things out. Now, if only she can make it up to Spike.  
  
Disclaimer: Spike is mine, and he lives under my bed when I'm not cuddling with him. *shakes head* Uh, unfortunately he's not mine, and neither is anything else relating to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It all belongs to the incomparable Joss Whedon, Marti Noxon, Mutant Enemy Production, 20th Century Fox, and UPN. No money's being made off of this story. I also don't own the song "Show Me". That's all Bree Sharp's.  
  
Author's Notes: You really have to read "Wasting My Time" to get this one at all. Which means I suck you into reading another of my stories! Mwahahahahaha! No, don't run away! I'm not really evil... much. ;) And yeah, there's a little Spike adoration in here. Duh! I adore Spike. *g* So sue me. But get in line behind Mutant Enemy, eh? I really had no idea where this was going to end up when I started writing it. It kind of ended up in Mushville, USA, but I really tried to keep it as sap free as possible. Which is hard, because love kind of makes people sappy. Fictional love makes me sappy, for God's sake. Oh well, enough of my yapping. I hope you enjoy. :)  
  
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Solitary girl I have been  
Living in a cell made of skin  
Sealed inside myself, nothing gets out or gets in  
I can't feel what you feel  
  
Buffy tossed and turned in her cold, hard bed. God, she thought, Spike's floor is more comfortable than this.  
  
Spike. Damn him. He kept creeping into her thoughts.  
  
I should have staked him tonight. She sighed. Oh yeah, that would've been intelligent. "You love me, now die!" Maybe I just should've staked myself.  
  
She was torturing herself, and with good reason. She'd never treated anyone like she treated Spike. She treated him like dirt. No, worse than that, but she was too tired to think of any other comparison at the moment. Dirt was bad enough, after everything he'd done for her.  
  
What was she thinking? He was the only one she'd gone to for help or support since she'd come back. Spike had told her it wasn't love *yet*, but was it now?  
  
Buffy ran her hands through her hair and pulled.  
  
Or was she so completely confused that she'd never know?  
  
She was still confused about everything. Who she was, what she was, what she was doing. She'd been brought back to this awful existence against her will, but she had to realize that didn't give her the right to act as she'd been acting.  
  
Making the best of it is what she should've been doing, like it or not. Though that was hard to do when every moment was more painful than the last. Things seemed to get harder the longer she was here, not easier.  
  
Buffy sat up, restless. *Now* she wanted to go to Spike. *Now* she wanted to play nice.   
  
She slammed both of her fists into the mattress. Spike would have none of that. Jumping him hadn't been her only mistake where he was concerned. It had only been the first of many.  
  
It was quite possible she'd just lost one of the best things she had. He was all she had, really. The only one that cared about how she was, how she felt, her and Dawn... The list went on, and just as she couldn't live in denial anymore, she'd blown it all.  
  
Her pride killed a lot of things, it seemed.  
  
For so long she tried to keep things in. Alone was safe. Nobody gets in, nobody gets hurt. When she'd become so closed off, she couldn't remember exactly. It had definitely been before she died. Before that she had worried she was losing her ability to love. Worrying about not being able to feel started way before she had jumped off that tower.  
  
Now she needed so much more than to just feel. She needed to feel something real, something genuine. With no resistance.  
  
Buffy got up and got dressed. She was now a girl on a mission.  
  
Show me the way to my heart  
Show me the way  
Show me the way to my heart, baby  
Show me, show me  
  
Buffy crept into Spike's crypt, the door not squeaking, much to her surprise and relief. There was a crunch underfoot though. She looked down at the floor, only to see the glint of broken glass in the moonlight from the open door.  
  
She sighed. The was more than one bottle's worth of glass. It looked like Spike had smashed everything breakable he owned. She'd just have to pick her way through it as best she could.  
  
Buffy closed the door behind her quietly. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she managed to step around the largest shards of glass.  
  
She made her way down to the lower level, where she found Spike, sprawled face down on his bed. His clothes were tossed about the room, all but his jeans, because apparently he'd passed out before he could take them off.  
  
As she looked down at his sleeping form, her eyes welled up with tears. She'd done this to him. She'd always hurt the men that loved her. Anyone that loved her.  
  
Buffy was tired of not accepting what was right in front of her. Denying it had made her act cruelly, and more than once. She wanted to wake him up and tell him she loved him, that she was falling in love with him. But would he believe her after everything she'd ever done and said? Would tonight turn out to be two fights in a row?  
  
She almost jumped when Spike rolled over, but he didn't wake up. He was on his back now, only taking up one side of the bed. As lightly as she could, she sat down on the bed, looking at him in the candlelight.   
  
He'd left them all burning, something that could've been a mistake.  
  
He actually looked peaceful, probably thanks to all the alcohol. His dark lashes swept over his pale skin, and the planes of his face weren't as harshly angular in sleep. He really was quite beautiful.  
  
Buffy smoothed back his hair, the disheveled curls working their own will. He looked almost childlike in this state, so much younger than he even appeared to be.  
  
This feeling was new to her. She'd never wanted to be tender with him before, though sometimes he'd look at her like only he could, and it would almost be her undoing. He could see her in a way no one else ever had. That would frustrate her so, that she'd built up walls around her heart to fend him off.  
  
Those walls had crumbled into dust a little more each time Spike had treated her better than she ever deserved. Every time he professed his love, she'd throw it back in his face. But a tiny part of her would believe everything he said, and a little more of the wall would come down.  
  
These past weeks had turned them into nothing. No matter what she did, or how disagreeable she was at times, he was nothing but good to her. Whether he was making love to her, or letting her cry out her pain and frustration in the middle of the night, he'd never lost patience since that first morning after.  
  
Buffy had never fully seen that side of him. Not for more than a few minutes at a time. It stunned her to her very core. Sometimes when he thought she was sleeping, he would tell her of all the things he would do for her and give her if he could. That's when she came to know William, because when the tough facade came down, that was still who he was.  
  
She would never be able to understand why he loved her the way he did. She'd certainly never done anything to encourage it.  
  
Suddenly, she felt Spike's arm snake around her waist and draw her closer. She was barely breathing as she waited to see what he would do, but nothing unexpected happened, as he was still asleep.  
  
Buffy took a deep breath. She was going to have to wake him. There was no telling what would happen then.  
  
She leaned down to whisper in his ear.  
  
"Spike, wake up. I need your help."  
  
I'll give you everything I possess  
If you tell me where you keep your happiness  
I look more and more and I find less and less  
I don't know what you know  
But I make it up as I go, yeah  
  
Spike slowly came to, and when he realized it was really Buffy sitting on his bed, he drew his arm away from her as if he'd been burned and nearly slammed into the headboard backing up.  
  
"Whoa," Buffy said, standing up.  
  
"What are you doing here?" Spike asked accusingly.  
  
"Nothing!" she said a little too quickly. "Uh, well, that's not entirely true."  
  
Spike had made sure he still had at least some clothes on, and now he was sitting upright on the bed staring at Buffy like she was completely mad.  
  
"I couldn't leave things like they were, Spike. I was lying in my own bed at home and I couldn't sleep. I couldn't stop thinking about you."  
  
Spike scoffed. "Yeah, we both know why."  
  
She saw a flash of hurt cross his face, before he slipped his "tough" mask firmly in place.  
  
Buffy no longer wanted to trade barbs or go where they were earlier tonight, but he was making this difficult. He was being difficult because of her, she realized, so she had to do something to avoid another blow up.  
  
"It's not even close to what you think."  
  
Silence.  
  
She kneeled down before him and clutched both of his hands. He didn't respond at all.  
  
Looking into his eyes, she asked, "Spike, *why* do you love me?" She tried to keep the desperation out of her voice.  
  
He'd been right about all the ways she treated him, so how how could he love her?  
  
Spike took one look into her pleading eyes, those big, murky, muddled up, hazel eyes that floored him every time, and his facade came tumbling down.  
  
"I don't know, Buffy," he said, squeezing her hands back. "For everything and for nothing at all."  
  
"Show me, Spike. If I could just understand what it is, because I don't know what you see in me, when I don't see all that much in myself. I think something's crept up on me, but I need to know."  
  
"You came up with the hardest question possible, didn't you?" He sighed. "I'd have to say you crept up on me, too, pet. I never wanted to do anything but kill you, or at least that's what I thought. I dreamt I loved you, and I'm not supposed to dream in the first place.  
  
"Hell, Buffy, it was your fire, your passion that finally got to me. You weren't scared of me for a minute. I couldn't make you scared of me, no matter how hard I tried, even if everyone else was. You were the worthiest opponent I ever had, but it all turned right around on me. You were going to keep your friends and family and this whole bloody, stupid world safe, even if it killed you. And it finally did.  
  
"I suppose that kind of nobility's not supposed to strike anything in a monster like me, but it did. When you died, there wasn't an ounce of satisfaction in me. If it hadn't been for Lil' Bit, I'd have walked right into that sunrise that morning without a second thought.  
  
"If you can't see you're special, then I can't help you, luv. You died for Dawn, because you love her. I only ever hoped that one day - Well, that one day you'd love me that much, that at least you'd be willing. 'Cause if it came down to you or me, I'd be dust before you knew what happened."  
  
Buffy's eyes held unshed tears as Spike finished. She knew he meant every word, and she was tired of trying to reconcile what he was with what he said. It simply couldn't be done.  
  
"I'm tired of playing games, Spike. It's destroying me inside and out. The lying, the denial, it's eating away at me.  
  
"I came here earlier to tell you how I feel, and you came at me, and I ran. And I honestly didn't realize what I was doing to you till then. Not completely."  
  
Buffy shifted a bit, uncomfortable, and Spike pulled her up to sit on the bed next to him. Still holding his hands, she squeezed them as she tried to find the words to go on.  
  
Spike started to speak, but she put a finger to his lips. She had to go on and do this now, before she lost every bit of courage she had.  
  
"I - I love you, Spike."  
  
Her words hung in the damp, cool air of the crypt.  
  
That was it. She'd finally struck the mouthy vampire speechless.  
  
She could see his blue eyes boring into hers, wondering if this was real. So many emotions passed through them in that one moment, that she no longer questioned what he could and could not feel.  
  
He had been the one that taught her to feel again, and she had no right to question him.  
  
Inside, Spike didn't know whether to rejoice or despair. He also didn't know if this would end in heartbreak or happiness.  
  
But he couldn't really think about that right now. His Slayer, his Buffy had finally admitted what he hoped for all along. He couldn't think of anything. There were no words in the English language to express what he was feeling.  
  
Slowly, he leaned forward and gently kissed her. There was little of the usual desperate hunger and passion. This time there was only tenderness.  
  
Buffy wound her fingers through his soft curls, savoring the feel of him. It was completely different without the animosity, the negative tension that always seemed to be between them. Most of which had been because of her and what she wouldn't let herself feel.  
  
Spike pulled away, looking into Buffy's eyes, intent, searching for truths. He had to ask, had to make sure.  
  
"Buffy, you're sure? It's for real this time?" he implored, his voice husky.  
  
"I'm sure," she whispered. "It's completely real."  
  
She kissed him again, this time ready to go further.  
  
Spike pulled away briefly. "I want to do this right this time," he insisted.  
  
"Lead the way," Buffy whispered.  
  
Show me the way to my heart  
Baby, show me, show me...  
  
The End 


End file.
